Open Source Operations

A necessary piece of operations is riding herd on home grown applications and projects from the corporate wilds. These things come to you late in their lifecycle with little to say about how their technology or composition. Often the expectation is that you’ll just take them over and “make them work.” Sometimes that’s doable, but most time there are support limitations.

Here’s the interview and explanation process I use to work with groups outside of Ops to set realistic expectations and about what can and and can’t do for them. It is step 0 of a project plan work. I like to avoid surprised and clearly set expectations about Operations can and can’t do.

How to have Ops take ownership for systems or processes or programs:

1. What is the business justification for this process?
2. Who sponsors the process (outside of operations)?
3. When will the process be turned over to operations?
4. How will your group know the process is in place and being monitored?
5. What are Operations obligations and responsibilities?
6. What are the sponsoring groups obligations and responsibilities?

System category:

1. Requires full/half/quarter time staff member.
2. Existing process needs monitoring and response plan.
3. Trivial process that doesn’t require monitoring.
4. Trivial process that needs monitoring.
5. Ops can monitor but not trouble shoot.
6. Ops can troubleshoot at level 1/2/3 but cannot fix.

Why would ops decline to accept your system, process or program:

1. There may be no way to support the process (for instance it involves on-going manual work – in this case the process likely needs to start at Engineering).
2. It will incur resource costs beyond reasonable levels (i.e. network usage beyond our current capacity, etc.)
3. The sponsoring group does not provide ongoing budgetary support.

What you should expect from us.

1. Integrity and discipline in all our work.
2. A consulting approach to putting your process into production. This means being an organization that is committed to your success and wants to put your work into production.
3. A “closed loop” system that has clear responsibility, reporting, troubleshooting and escalation procedures.

written by admin